Now I had hope. I felt encouraged to fight for my life. I saw the great outdoors 🙃 I knew I had to fight, I had to trust in God and see what His plan was for me now that life looked different. When you are in this position you cannot look too far into the future; that can be daunting. You just have to trust the Lord day by day and see what your new future will be. Remember God's promise in the bible: He works all things together for good (paraphrasing, Romans 8:28).
As my journey into recover began in the ICU I learned a lot of things. I AM LOVED. I am loved by the one true God, but also by so many others. I was flabbergasted to learn that God had equipped thousands of people to pray for me all over the world! From my home country of Canada (where many many churches and groups were praying for me), to the United States, to Trinidad, to India, to England...people were earnestly praying for ME to survive and recover! Wow! This was shocking and eye opening. Why would so many people commit to praying for me everyday? People that didn't even know me? Well, because the Lord Jesus Christ moved them to. So they took it upon themselves to be obedient to the Lord and submit on my behalf a request that God heal me and save my life.
This is BIG.
This is what God does.
This is who Jesus is!
When you can't intercede on your own behalf, He will equip thousands to do it for you!
THAT is how much He cares for us!
Am I using a lot of exclamation marks?? Sure am! Because this is something to get excited about! How can you not? How can you not be in shock, awe and filled with joy that the true living God moved so many strangers to pray for you?
THIS is a miracle in itself.
While I was still on the trach my close friend and her daughters came to visit me. Her daughters are my nieces. Not by blood, but by spirit. They are my family. They are people who you want in your corner, and I will forever be grateful that I get to call them family. Our children have grown up as cousins, and forever cousins they will be. When they first came to visit, my lovely niece went home and wrote a poem about me. What a blessing she is! Her poem was another token of affection that spoke love to me.
My friend Simone, and my nieces Emily & Mia visiting me
The poem Mia wrote
As you can see I was still attached to the trach and had my IV and feeding tube. But I was so happy to see them! Friendly faces of those you love can lift your spirits incredibly 🙂
I was making physical progress. I did still have some hiccups. I had a few PICC lines put in and removed because I ended up with a blood infection. A PICC line is kind of like a catheter that goes into a large vein in your arm and is guided to a large vein near your heart. This way they can administer long term medications without the hassle of a regular IV that can be easily yanked out. It was the least painful thing I experienced! Ha! But unfortunately I did have to fight a blood infection more than once.
Once that passed, they decided it was time for me to be corked!
Now, if you are like me you will not know what being corked means.
So...let me tell you:
They FINALLY took the trach out! Yay! my lungs were improving enough that I could be transitioned back to the forced air machine (the airvo). And in order to remove the trach they needed to plug the hole that had been made. Sooooo, they pulled out the trach and inserted a red "cork" to plug the hole. This way it keeps it from closing on the off chance that they may need to hook me back up to the ventilator.
Whew!
Let me tell you...I never thought his day was going to come! I was scared. It sounded scary and painful. But I was also excited to get rid of this thing. I was also concerned that I may not be able to breathe properly without the ventilator. But, they did it. They corked me. Was it painful? A little. But I was oh so happy to be rid of that thing! The next few days were kind of rough. I did struggle at times to breathe. Nights were the worst and I didn't sleep well - ever. I had to sleep sitting up in the bed because it made it easier to breathe. I constantly rang for my nurse and my respiratory therapist. They came in over and over again and never complained. I felt like a pain in the butt, but they were great with me. They did everything they could to make me more comfortable and ease the pain of breath. Thank you to the great team I had 💜
Me after I was corked (see the red cork in my neck)
Above is a picture of me with the cork in my neck. This wasn't right after they corked me, but a week or so later. I had begun physiotherapy to recondition my body. They had to lift me to seated position. This a a device they used to keep me sitting upright. It was very painful. Everything hurt. I had post-traumatic arthritis. EVERYTHING hurt. When the physiotherapist first came in she asked me to use my thumb to touch each one of my fingers. Guess what my first thought was?
"Oh please, that is so easy!"
Guess what happened? lol
It WAS NOT easy! Just that simple movement was difficult and it hurt. That's when I realized this journey was going to be a lot longer than I initially thought.
Psalm 34: 19-20
"A righteous man may have many troubles, but the Lord protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken."
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